by William Blanchard Jerrold (uncredited).
Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.1 #25 (14 Sep 1850).
It is a difficult puzzle to reconcile the existence of certain superstitions that continue to have wide influence with the enlightenment of the nineteenth century. When we have read glowing paragraphs about the wonderful progress accomplished by the present generation; when we have regarded the giant machinery in operation for the culture of the people—moved, in great part, by the collective power of individual charity; when we have examined the stupendous results of human genius and ingenuity which are now laid bare to the lowliest in the realm; we turn back, it must be confessed, with a mournful despondency, to mark the debasing influence of the old superstitions which have survived to the present time.
The superstitions of the ancients formed part of their religion. They consulted oracles as now men pray. The stars were the arbiters of their fortunes. Natural phenomena, as lightning and hurricanes, were, to them, awful expressions of the anger of their particular deities. They had their dies atri and their dies albi; the former were marked down in their calendars with a black character, to denote ill-luck, and the latter were painted in white characters to signify bright and propitious days. They followed the finger-posts of their teachers. Faith gave dignity to the tenets of the star-gazer and fire-worshipper.
The priests of old taught their disciples to regard six particular days in the year as days fraught with unusual danger to mankind. Men were enjoined not to let blood on these black days, nor to imbibe any liquid. It was devoutly believed that he who ate goose on one of these black days would surely die within forty more; and that any little stranger who made his appearance on one of the dies atri would surely die a sinful and violent death. Men were further enjoined to let blood from the right arm on the seventh or fourteenth of March; from the left arm on the eleventh of April; and from either arm on the third or sixth of May, that they might avoid pestilential diseases. These barbaric observances, when brought before people in illustrations of the mental darkness of the ancients, are considered at once to be proof positive of their abject condition. We thereupon congratulated ourselves upon living in the nineteenth century; when such foolish superstitions are laughed at; and perhaps our vanity is not a little flattered by the contrast which presents itself, between our own highly cultivated condition, and the wretched state of our ancestors.
Yet Mrs. Flimmins will not undertake a sea-voyage on a Friday; nor would she on any account allow her daughter Mary to be married on that day of the week. She has great pity for the poor Red Indians who will not do certain things while the moon presents a certain appearance, and who attach all kinds of powers to poor dumb brutes: yet if her cat purrs more than usual, she accepts the warning, and abandons the trip she had promised herself on the morrow.
Miss Nippers subscribes largely to the fund for eradicating superstitions from the minds of the wretched inhabitants of Kamschatka; and while she is calculating the advantages to be derived from a mission to the South Sea Islands, to do away with the fearful superstitious reverence in which those poor dear islanders hold the native flea: a coal pops from her fire, and she at once augurs from its shape, an abundance of money that will enable her to set her pious undertaking in operation; but on no account will she commence collecting subscriptions for the anti-drinking-slave-grown-sugar-in-tea society, because she has always remarked that Monday is her unlucky day. On a Monday her poodle died, and on a Monday she caught that severe cold at Brighton, from the effects of which she is afraid she will never recover.
Mrs. Carmine is a very strong-minded woman. Her unlucky day is Wednesday. On a Wednesday she first caught that flush which she has never been able to chase from her cheeks, and on one of these fatal days her Maria took the scarlet fever. Therefore, she will not go to a pic-nic on a Wednesday, because she feels convinced that the day will turn out wet, or that the wheel will come off the carriage. Yet the other morning, when a gipsy was caught telling her eldest daughter her fortune, Mrs. Carmine very properly reproached the first-born for her weakness, in giving any heed to the silly mumblings of the old woman. Mrs. Carmine is considered to be a woman of uncommon acuteness. She attaches no importance whatever to the star under which a child is born,—does not think there is a pin to choose between Jupiter and Neptune; and she has a positive contempt for ghosts; but she believes in nothing that is begun, continued, or ended on a Wednesday.
Miss Crumple, on the contrary, has seen many ghosts,—in fact, is by this time quite intimate with one or two of the mysterious brotherhood; but at the same time she is at a loss to understand how any woman in her senses, can believe Thursday to be a more fortunate day than Wednesday, or why Monday is to be black-balled from the Mrs. Jones's calendar. She can state, on her oath, that the ghost of her old schoolfellow, Eliza Artichoke, appeared at her bedside on a certain night and she distinctly saw the mole on its left cheek, which poor Eliza, during her brief career, had vainly endeavoured to eradicate, with all sorts of poisonous things. The ghost, moreover, lisped,—so did Eliza! This was all clear enough to Miss Crumple, and she considered it a personal insult for anybody to suggest that her vivid apparitions existed only in her own over-wrought imagination. She had an affection for her ghostly visitors, and would not hear a word to their disparagement.
The unearthly warnings which Mrs. Piptoss had received had well-nigh spoilt all her furniture. When a relative dies, the fact is not announced to her in the commonplace form of a letter,—no, an invisible sledgehammer falls upon her Broadwood, an invisible power upsets her loo-table, all the doors of her house unanimously blow open, or a coffin flies out of the fire into her lap.
Mrs. Grumple, who is a very economical housewife, looks forward to the day when the moon re-appears,—on which occasion she turns her money, taking care not to look at the pale lady through glass. This observance, she devoutly believes, will bring her good fortune. When Miss Caroline has a knot in her lace, she looks for a present; and when Miss Amelia snuffs the candle out, it is her faith that the act defers her marriage for a twelvemonth. Any young lady who dreams the same dream two consecutive Fridays, will tell you that her visions will "come true."
Yet these are exactly the ladies, who most deplore the "gross state of superstition" in wrhich many "benighted savages" live, and willingly subscribe their money for its eradication, The superstition so generally connected with Friday, may easily be traced to its source. It undoubtedly and confessedly has its origin in scriptural history: it is the day on which the Saviour suffered. The superstition is the more revolting from this circumstance; and it is painful to find that it exists among persons of education. There is no branch of the public service, for instance, in which so much sound mathematical knowledge is to be found, as in the Navy. Yet who are more superstitious than sailors, from the admiral down to the cabin boy? Friday fatality is still strong among them. Some years ago, in order to lessen this folly, it was determined that a ship should be laid down on a Friday, and launched on a Friday; that she should be called "Friday," and that she should commence her first voyage on a Friday. After much difficulty a captain was found who owned to the name of Friday; and after a great deal more difficulty men were obtained, so little superstitious, as to form a crew. Unhappily, this experiment had the effect of confirming the superstition it was meant to abolish. The "Friday" was lost—was never, in fact, heard of from the day she set sail.
Day-fatality, as Miss Nippers interprets it is simply the expression of an undisciplined and extremely weak mind; for, if any person will stoop to reason with her on her aversion to Mondays, he may ask her whether the death of the poodle, or the catching of her cold, are the two greatest calamities of her life; and, if so, whether it is her opinion that Monday is set apart, in the scheme of Nature, so far as it concerns her, in a black character. Whether for her insignificant self there is a special day accursed! Mrs. Carmine is such a strong-minded woman, that we approach her with no small degree of trepidation. Wednesday is her dies ater, because, in the first place, on a Wednesday she imprudently exposed herself, and is suffering from the consequences; and, in the second place, on a Wednesday her Maria took the scarlet fever. So she has marked Wednesday down in her calendar with a black character; yet her contempt for stars and ghosts is prodigious. Now there is a consideration to be extended to the friends of ghosts, which Day-fatalists cannot claim. Whether or not deceased friends take a more airy and flimsy form, and adopt the invariable costume of a sheet to visit the objects of their earthly affections, is a question which the shrewdest thinkers and the profoundest logicians have debated very keenly, but without ever arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.
The strongest argument against the positive existence of ghosts, is, that they appear only to people of a certain temperament, and under certain exciting circumstances. The obtuse, matter-of-fact man, never sees a ghost; and we may take it as a natural law, that none of these airy visitants ever appeared to an attorney. But the attorney, Mr. Fee Simple, we are assured, holds Saturday to be an unlucky day. It was on a Saturday that his extortionate bill in poor Mr. G.'s case, was cut down by the taxing master; and it was on a Saturday that a certain heavy bill was duly honoured, upon which he had hoped to reap a large sum in the shape of costs. Therefore Mr. Fee Simple believes that the destinies have put a black mark against Saturday, so far as he is concerned.
The Jew who thought that the thunder-storm was the consequence of his having eaten a slice of bacon, did not present a more ludicrous picture, than Mr. Fee Simple presents with his condemned Saturday. We have an esteem for ghost-inspectors, which it is utterly impossible to extend to Day-fatalists. Mrs. Piptoss, too, may be pitied; but Mog, turning her money when the moon makes her re-appearance, is an object of ridicule. We shall neither be astonished, nor express condolence, if the present, which Miss Caroline anticipates from the knot in her lace, be not forthcoming; and as for Miss Amelia, who has extinguished the candle, and to the best of her belief lost her husband for a twelvemonth, we can only wish for her, that when she is married, her lord and master will shake her faith in the prophetic power of snuffers. But of all the superstitions that have survived to the present time, and are to be found in force among people of education and a thoughtful habit, Day-fatalism is the most general, as it is the most unfounded and preposterous. It is a superstition, however, in which many great and powerful thinkers have shared, and by which they have been guided; it owes much of its present influence to this fact; but reason, Christianity, and all we have comprehended of the great scheme of which we form part, alike tend to demonstrate its absurdity, and utter want of all foundation.